Data Assimilation Enhancements to Air Force Weather's Land Information System

Accurate and timely characterization of land state variables (e.g., snow cover, snow depth, soil moisture, soil temperature, vegetation health, albedo, heat fluxes, etc.) is critical environmental intelligence input for the spectrum of US Air Force & Army operations and their applications around the globe. The United States Air Force (USAF) has a proud and storied tradition of enabling significant advancements in the area of characterizing and modeling land state information. The 557th Weather Wing (557 WW) and its predecessors (i.e., HQ Air Force Weather Agency [AFWA], Air Force Global Weather Central [AFGWC], and USAF Environmental Technical Applications Center [ETAC]) have been home to the DoD’s only operational regional and global land data analysis systems since January 1958. HQ 557 WW (DoD’s Executive Agent for Land Information) and the AF/XOW (the DoD Air and Space Natural Environment Modeling and Simulation Executive Agent [ASNE MSEA]) collaborate and deliver optimized geospatial intelligence information tools supporting war-fighters, planners, and decision makers at all echelons and services of the U.S. military, government and intelligence community.

The 557 WW’s current operational system for global characterization of land state variables is the NASA/GSFC-developed Land Information System (LIS). LIS is an advanced software framework for high performance land surface modeling and data assimilation of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) information upon which AFW relies for the production of accurate and timely characterization of global land state information. The 557 WW has been the single most important contributor to the inter- agency/national scientific collaboration known as the LIS enabling timely transition of new capabilities from research-to-operations that meet or exceed tri-service (USAF, USN, and USA) as well as multiple other Federal agencies’ operational and mission requirements.

The current list of LIS stakeholders formally registered with NASA/GSFC includes users from more than 50 academic institutions, other U.S. and foreign government agencies, and for-profit corporations. In the most recent set of operational enhancements, a number of advanced data assimilation capabilities have been transitioned to 557 WW. This includes the assimilation of a large number of precipitation data sources to develop a high-quality merged meteorological analysis, the assimilation of soil moisture retrievals from satellite sensors such as ASCAT and SMAP, and the use of an updated snow analysis that incorporates information from ground and satellite sensors. This presentation will describe these enhancements in the 557 WW’s operational land surface modeling and data assimilation system.